The cost for prescription drugs and other medicines can be a recurring and increasing expense for many consumers. Pharmaceutical companies and generic drug manufacturers or providers can offer consumers competing drug and medicine products at different, sometimes substantially different, prices. In many instances, consumers may be unaware of the availability of and relative prices between the variety of drug and medicine product choices, including alternative drugs such as generic drugs.
In many instances, a consumer may be prescribed a brand name drug by his or her physician, which may be relatively more expensive than other competing, alternative drugs, such as a generic drug with therapeutically equivalent effects. Sometimes, a consumer can obtain information regarding alternative drug products by asking his or her physician and/or pharmacist whether such alternative or generic drugs exist. In other instances, a consumer can determine similar information by conducting independent research.
Obtaining alternative drug product information from a physician and/or pharmacist or by conducting independent research can be difficult and time consuming. A common drawback to asking a physician whether alternative drug products exist is that the physician may not know the relative costs of the alternative drug products compared to a prescribed drug. A drawback to asking a physician and/or pharmacist whether alternative drug products exist is that the consumer must be sophisticated enough to ask his or her physician and/or pharmacist whether alternative drug products exist. A drawback to conducting independent research for such drug products is that the research may be relatively technical, and there is a possibility that a consumer could misidentify a drug product, or misidentify a dosage of a particular alternative drug that is not a relatively safe alternative to the initially prescribed drug.
Therefore, a need exists for systems and methods for identifying an alternative to prescription drug products.
In addition, a need exists for systems and methods for obtaining an alternative to a prescription drug from a pharmacy.
Furthermore, a need exists for systems and methods for facilitating a shift in drug market share.
Moreover, a need exists for systems and methods for enhancing revenues of a pharmacy.
An additional need exists for systems and methods for driving market share for medications or pharmaceutical manufacturers or providers by presenting pricing differentials for therapeutic alternatives.